Thursday, June 13, 2013

To the Wonder

Grade: 83/A-

Terrence Malick’s The
Tree of Life was such a crowning achievement (my pick for the best film of
the decade so far) that anything that comes afterwards is going to be seen as a
lesser effort. Even with that in mind, To
the Wonder has received what’s easily the most muted reception of any of
Malick’s films, with some critics regarding it with outright scorn. It’s true, To the Wonder is likely the weakest film
Malick has ever made. That’s hardly a condemnation, though, and its virtues are
more than enough to make it a must-see.

The plot of To the
Wonder is fairly simple: Marina (Olga Kurylenko) is a Ukranian single
mother living in Paris with her 10-year-old daughter. She meets American
traveler Neal (Ben Affleck). The two fall in love and move back to America, but
their relationship goes through a series of ups-and-downs as they separate,
reunite, and separate again. Meanwhile, their priest, Father Quintana (Javier
Bardem), goes through a serious crisis of faith.

Much has been made of how personal the film is to Malick,
but while the relationship between Affleck and Kurylenko is clearly inspired by
Malick’s own life, Malick has purposefully obscured the specifics to make the
film more impressionistic. To the Wonder
is less based in incident than any of Malick’s other films. Indeed,
cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki was correct when he stated that the film may
be Malick’s most purely cinematic work. Neil and Marina’s names are barely
mentioned within the film, and while they have arguments, the words are often
intentionally buried within the sound to make the arguments more abstract. Most
of the dialogue that is heard is via narration (yes, even more so than most
Malick films), and it’s intentionally obscure, often dealing more with the
concepts of love and faith than anything else.

Malick has essentially taken the impressionistic rhythms of The Tree of Life’s first third and
applied them to a feature, making less of a story and more of a filmed poem.
Many will likely find the film to be an exercise in self-parody, and true, the
film is sometimes maddeningly nebulous. It’s less about characters than
figures, less about a single relationship than all relationships, and some of
the sidetracks it takes aren’t wholly successful. Neil’s tryst with an old flame
(Rachel McAdams, who seems deeply uncomfortable on the screen) doesn’t have the
same gravity as the rest of the film, and a scene between Kurylenko and a
visiting friend turns the whispered prayers of the narration into clunky
dialogue.

But those on To the
Wonder’s wavelength will likely find the film liberating, not to mention
beautiful. The film deserves credit for playing as a darker mirror image to The Tree of Life, a film about
surrendering to the mystery and accepting the unknowable. To the Wonder is not hopeless, but certainly more tentative about
this acceptance. Neil and Marina, like almost all couples, have taken great joy
in the surface part of their relationship, but have great difficulty
maintaining their love. The same can be said of Father Quintana, a man who no
doubt found love for God in his early life but now wonders if anything is truly
there for him. Are our relationships with one another, with the universe, with
the spiritual true or shallow and one-sided? To the Wonder may not be Malick’s greatest film, but as it hits its
emotional peak in its final minutes, it proves as vital as any of his works. It’s
about the joy of fleeting pleasures (making love, experiencing nature) and how
lasting ones- love, God, happiness- may be outside our grasp.